


a garden of death

by creatoriginsane



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Consent Issues, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Power Dynamics, Religion Kink, Sexual Violence, aka severed heads, inappropriate use of body parts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:34:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24304498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatoriginsane/pseuds/creatoriginsane
Summary: "Look, it speaks."He is plucked from the earth with ease."Can we keep it?"AU. Hidan lives longer than expected, and he regrets every moment of it.
Kudos: 5





	1. the head in the jar

**Author's Note:**

> I was drafting the revision outline for The Beast, the Woman, and Her Flowers and this idea came up. Not really part of any bigger story, just wanted to write some sadist!Haru and kinky!Shikai for fun. Hidan is fun and difficult to write properly.

It sits in a glass jar atop a shelf. There are holes drilled into the lid, but little air flows in and out of the container. There is only enough to provide. But it has no need for oxygen, water, or food. It is a decapitated head, severed from its body with the cleanest of cuts. Sometimes it still bleeds and a sticky residue is left on the bottom of the jar. Sometimes it begins to smell, not of rot or decay, but the sharp and pungent scent of medicine and herbs. And sometimes, the head dares to speak.

"Hey, you." Its voice is muffled behind the glass, but is heard all the same.

The only other occupant in the room is the samurai. At least, that's how the head knows her. She wears around her neck a pendant bearing an unfamiliar crest. And on occasion, when she strips off her haori and kimono, he sees the same crest inked on her arm. There is a dragon inked on her back, whose eyes he swears could see right through him.

Now, she is stripping again. Her back is turned to him so he has no choice but to face the dragon half-hidden by kimono. She's only removed half of it, as she always does. Like she's short of being ashamed. Like she's hiding something.

"Hey," he says again, averting his eyes, "I'm talking here."

He swears she shivered at that moment. She cranes her head to look at him from her periphery.

"So it speaks." She mutters, before returning to tend to a gash cutting across her rib, just underneath her breast. She huffs, "It speaks."

He isn't one to stare, but he's just a head now, and she chose to strip right in front of him. It feels wrong somehow, to be treated like this. It's almost emasculating, the way he is just like any other object now. He has eyes, he has a mouth, and he can still speak. But it looks like she has chosen to ignore these. She cleans her wound quickly, wiping disinfectant into the gash, applying an herbal balm, and wrapping it with gauze.

"Of course I fucking do." He replies too late, but neither of them notice it, "Now where's my body?"

She stares at him and frowns. "I don't know."

He growls at her nonchalance, "The fuck you don't know. I've been in here for goddamn days. Your friend got a fetish for decapitated heads or something?"

Come to think of it, he hasn't seen the other woman for a while. He knows she was the one who took him, who picked him up from whatever hole he was in and placed him in this jar. She's the one who's easier on the eyes and ears, at least, who tries to make decent conversation like he's not just a head in a jar. She's the one who puts on a weird herbal concoction on his neck to stop the rotting and decaying. The one who offers him food and drink like he needs it. The one who offered to take him out of the jar one time for some fresh air, to which he replied by biting her hand hard enough to bleed.

_"You bite the hand that feeds you. Are you so starved, Zanshu?"_

That's what she called him, the decapitated head. She didn't wince at the pain, didn't even mind that her blood was staining her clothes. She didn't look like any shinobi he's ever seen, didn't act or move like a shinobi either. But she stared at him dead-on, unflinching and unnerving, and lapped at the blood seeping from her wound.

She licked the wound clean and bared her teeth, pearly and pristine.

_"Does my blood taste so sweet?"_

He is rarely ever scared, but gods be dammed, that woman frightened him then. So he should probably be thankful that it's the samurai who's here with him.

"Or something." She shrugs. "I can never really know what she's thinking."

"Fuck that," he growls, "you got my head–"

"I didn't."

"–you didn't fucking think, 'Oh, maybe his body's here, too'?"

She sighs, "I wasn't the one who dug you up."

He cocks an eyebrow. "So?"

"So I couldn't have known."

"You were there!"

He would stab her now if he could. People like her, those deadpan to a fault, annoy him more than most people. It reminds him of that one guy, the tiny grump who sounded a lot like Kakuzu, but worse. What was his name, again?

"I was in the area." She corrected him, "And you weren't exactly alive when she dug you up."

Right. One moment he's being buried alive, the next moment he's in a jar with some woman staring at him like a piece of candy. It wasn't exactly the death he pictured, but then again, he didn't really imagine dying. His belief in Jashin guaranteed him of that, and yet…

"How the fuck did she find me, then?"

It wasn't like the woman was out collecting body parts, was she?

The samurai moves to prepare a pot of tea. This is part of her routine. She would come in, dress a wound or change her clothes, make a pot of tea, then go to sleep. She doesn't stay long, so he assumes this must be a safehouse or a stopover. Of all places to keep a decapitated head, right?

"I don't know."

She decides to brew peppermint, and the stringent scent begins filling the room. She's ignoring him. She always is. This isn't the first time he's spoken to her since he woke up, but she's acting like it was. Like she doesn't remember. Each and every time.

"Do you fucking know anything, then?"

His question hangs in silence, and it's the kind that he hates. The kind of silence that is forced and one-sided. He's asked a question and he's expecting an answer. He's impatient like that, and this is only frustrating him even more. He knows that she knows something. The way she slows her movements means that she's hesitating. She's been found out. He's found her out.

He stares as she drinks. He's not that impatient, a man like him can be _forced_ to wait.

"One thing," she finishes one cup and pours another. "I know who you are, Hidan."

It's the first time he's heard his name since his "death" but that doesn't really surprise him. His name and face are all over different editions of the Bingo Book, anyway. Everyone's heard of him and what he's done, who he is, and what he's capable of. It's the first time he's heard her say it, though, and he doesn't like how calm she sounds, almost as if she's taunting him.

"You in this for the bounty, then?" He scoffs, "Like you'd get full price for a fucking head."

She removes the rest of her kimono, baring her entire back to him. He sees the dragon in full view now, sees its curled body, claws, and fangs. It's an intricate-looking tattoo, something he's only ever seen in wealthier targets. He sees her other arm, the one she always keeps hidden. He sees the definitive line where flesh ends and ceramic begins.

_She has an artificial arm, so what?_

"A few years ago, I was tasked to deliver you to a certain organization." She clears her throat, "You might not remember me, but you might remember my name."

He's never cared about names, much less the names of those who wanted to bring him in or kill him. They're just faces and masks. They're just doing it for the money, for the fame, never for something grander.

"I was called Mumei."

He doesn't remember that name.

"Even if you don't, you might remember the organization."

He thinks she's pausing deliberately just to rile him.

"The Akatsuki."

The name itself is like a detonator, and the explosion is filled with the realization that she was _that bitch_. He remembers it, the first time his scythe couldn't cut through his opponent like they were made of steel. Of course he'd remember that fight, it was one of the few times he considered performing the ritual to end it. He remembers her lying on the ground, bleeding and looking half-dead. He could have easily killed her, but why hadn't he? How did that fight end?

_Right. The fucking grump and his fucking poison._

She wasn't alone then, but she fought him herself. And then… there was a man who said he should have just done it himself. Then before he knew it, he was heaving on the ground with purple liquid seeping from his mouth. And then, he's a member of this group and partnered with one of the worst people he's ever met. But Kakuzu was unkillable, like him.

_Was this some fucking "full circle" bullshit?_

Surely Jashin wouldn't do something so cruel to his most loyal follower, would he?

"I didn't think to get even with you." She puts her kimono back on. "And because of that fight, I now have this."

She flexes and fingers on the artificial arm, and it opens up like a grotesque display. Out come flying wires and needles, too many sharp and pointy things to count. They fill the room, stabbing into the wood of the walls and the dirt of the floor.

It reminds him of that grump Sasori, who–in the very few instances he's witnessed–would reveal his full bodily arsenal of poison, gasoline, fire, and steel when he's pissed. Maybe he's the one who made her arm.

"So, thank you." She flicks her wrist and everything comes flooding back in, and the arm closes shut, seamless where it was ruptured open before.

He doesn't understand why she would tell him this now, why she would suddenly bring this up after all this time. He's seen her come and go in this hut too many times already, and each time she would act as if he didn't exist.

"So the Akatsuki's come looking for me?"

"The Akatsuki's gone." She pours another cup, her final one. "And I left soon after you were brought in."

There's too much to take in from that sentence, so his first reaction comes naturally.

"The fuck? How long has it been–"

She could have told him that earlier. She should have told him this earlier. Is she only remembering this now?

"You've been declared dead for two, three weeks."

_That's too fucking long._

She shows him a Bingo Book with his and Kakuzu's faces and names crossed out. She doesn't show him the face of anyone else.

"It's been five years since I left." She places the Bingo Book on a shelf, "I didn't think I'd encounter you like this, Hidan."

The way she says his name now is condescending and mocking.

He glares at her, "For all I know, you're still going to put my head up for sale."

She scoffs. "Like you said, it's not like we'd get full price. We'd need a body."

_That…_

"So you are looking for my body!"

She blinks once, mildly amused at his excitement.

"A body." She emphasizes. "Haru says any body would do. Maybe."

_Haru. So that's the other woman's name._

He's not the least bit terrified by that idea, but he is bothered by the lack of conditions. He thinks he should at least have a say in the matter. It's his body they're talking about, after all. And how could they even be sure that any body would do? But then again, he's just a head in a jar.

"If you're obedient, she might let you choose."

He scoffs.

"So be good, I guess." She shrugs disinterestedly, "Do as she says."

He wonders about what that could mean, about what that implies. For him to shut up? Act like the decapitated head that he is? Call her "Mommy" or something like that? He swears he'll kill them, the two of them, once he does get a body, whether it's to his liking or not. He'll kill them, skewer them and sacrifice them to Jashin and get his real body back.

"So you don't really have any choice." She lifts the cup and offers it to him. "Tea?"

"Fuck you."

He scowls as she drinks with a smile.

"Who knows? Maybe you'll get there."

_May Jashin strike them with the fury of a raging bull._


	2. the cut stems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this instead of working today, so I kinda wish I was still a student. This version/vision of Haru is loosely inspired by Tamayo from Kimetsu no Yaiba/Demon Slayer (though I only got halfway through the series and saw her "shift" towards the end of the manga).

Haru Koubaku is not her real name.

Hidan has never been sure of many things other than his belief and his god, but now he is sure that the smiling woman isn't who she says she is.

"What are you thinking, Zanshu?"

She's making a balm again, the one with a sharp scent and a burning sensation when applied on the skin. It's the one she uses to stop the rot and decay, the one that really sticks to the skin and fills what little space he has to himself inside the jar. Come to think of it, why is he kept in the jar? Is it for his safety, or for theirs?

"You know I've got a name." He scowls.

She beats the mixture in the bowl one final time. She's finished it. She's going to take his head out and push him face-down onto the table to apply it around his neck. He's never liked this, how easily vulnerable he is as just a head. When this happened before, when he was suddenly decapitated, Kakuzu would leave him in that state as punishment for some petty thing.

_"You talk too much."_

_"Shut the fuck up."_

_"Maybe you are better as just a head."_

But not for long, because, in Kakuzu's words, he'd rather not lug around a body and a head. And he'd really prefer Kakuzu letting his head roll around the ground as his body went like... well, like a body without a head–than this woman's balms and salves and name-calling and smiling face.

"I do," She nods, "but are we fully who we are without our body?"

He adds another thing to that list; her questions. It's anything that comes out of her mouth that unnerves him the most because it's often paired with a sickly-sweet smile. Like she's one of the yokai he's heard about when he was younger, those with glowing eyes and sharp teeth. Like she could tell him she'd kill him and he'd believe it. It's her questions that unnerve him the most because she asks like he would know the answers. Jashinism, for all its proclaimed glory and assured paradise, has little to say when it comes to the human body.

"The human body is a vessel by which the god incarnates. Pure is the body that is emptied of all worldly desires. Pure is the soul that is empty and whole, made for none but the god himself."

She approaches him, smiling with her teeth, and leans close to the glass.

"Isn't that what your god had said?"

The initial shock washes over his face faster than it appeared, quick to be replaced by a near-permanent veneer of anger and rage. It's more infuriating than it is shocking, that she knows it, that she says it so casually, like she was from the god himself.

"Who are you?" He hisses. "Who the fuck are you?"

The smile doesn't fade from her face, and he's sure he'd feel a shiver if he had a body. But now, what he feels is the heat of his anger spreading through his face and prickling the back of his neck. She stares at him unmoving, like a statue, like a ghost. And having no choice but to look at her, he notices the uncanniness of her face to those of the so-called saints in the temples. Symmetrical and unblemished, she could be made of stone or ceramic and it wouldn't make a difference.

She straightens up and unscrews the lid of the jar.

"I am your savior, Zanshu." She places the lid aside, but doesn't reach inside. " I plucked you from the earth and gave you new life."

He refuses to believe that. He had always been alive, even when he did not breathe or talk, ripped limb from limb, even buried in that would-be tomb. He feels her nail press into his scalp. She picks him up this way now–ever since that day he bit her hand–by the hair. But not without reminding him who has the advantage, the power, between them.

"Not your god."

She plucks him from the jar with the same kind of ease–he supposes–as when she plucked him from the ground. The rush of air around him is cold and dry. She grips his head tighter.

"I did."

She takes him to the table, and he expects the feel of wood on his face as she presses him into it to apply the balm. Instead, she plants him in the bowl itself. The pungent smell hits his nose. The mixture is cold around his neck, but the burning sensation persists. Hot and cold. It's almost comforting. He's almost used to the feeling. He could almost take the smallest bit of pleasure in it, in the hot-cold burn and the sharp, astringent scent.

And before he knows it, he's sighing and letting himself sink.

"Doesn't that feel nice, Zanshu?"

He swears that was a reflex action. She presses him further into the bowl, until she feels the bone in his neck against the bottom. He winces.

"Fucking–"

The pain is sharp but quick, and he sinks deeper into the bowl. Her hand doesn't move from his head, and it's starting to feel heavy.

"You should be grateful, Zanshu."

She looks at him endearingly, but it doesn't faze him. Instead, it makes him angrier, makes him want to tear off the skin of her hand with his teeth and watch her bleed, make that façade of hers break, make that smile of hers twist, make her scream.

"What're you staring at?"

She pats his head, each one heavier than the last, and he thinks she might shove him off the table, press his face into the ground with the heel of her feet. And all the while smiling.

"Look at you. Just a head now, without a body."

She presses her lips as she smiles, mouth painted red. The rest of her face is painted too; skin powder-white, eyebrows and eyelids charcoal-black, lips blood red, and cheeks stained rouge. He's seen this kind of makeup before, worn by obnoxious and touchy-feely women in those districts Kakuzu hated visiting. She looks high-class and expensive, like one of those fancy escorts frequented by one of their Bingo Book targets, so is that her reason for all this? To enact a revenge so twisted and cruel? Use his own god to mock him as she does it?

"Be good. Do as she says."

The samurai's words come to mind, so he thinks asking it now would be a better time than any. She might comply and stop with her mind games if he asks politely. The submissive tone doesn't suit him, it never has, but it's worked with Kakuzu before. Though begrudgingly, the older man still has some form of respect for him–if not him, then manners and niceties. Come to think of it, he doesn't know how old Kakuzu really is...

"Why am I here?"

She blinks, clearly surprised at his quiet tone. But before she could speak, the samurai rushes in, heaving and sweating like she had just come from a fight.

"Haru–"

And it's obvious too–when she stops–how she's surprised at the scene before her.

"What's he doing out?"

The woman blinks a few times, shaking herself awake and clearing her throat. She straightens up and fixes a smile back into place.

"He's starting to rot again, that's all. I thought I'd give him fresh air while I'm at it."

The way she answers is practiced and suspicious, but the samurai doesn't notice it. Too tired to think too much about it, she sits on a far bench and wipes the sweat from her face.

The woman turns away from him. "How did it go with Lady Miyabi?"

The samurai glances warily at him before replying, "She won't mind you being away for a few more days, but no longer than a fortnight."

"That would be enough time." The woman answered automatically.

"Haru," the samurai lowers her voice, "what are you trying to do?"

The woman turns to smile at him before returning to the samurai.

"A good deed."

The phrase is enough to tell him–and he thinks, even the samurai–that there's no getting straight answers from her.

But the samurai is the older one between them, isn't she? She hasn't touched him, not once, not even before, but he could assume the callouses on her hands. She's fought him and miraculously survived, and from that fight alone he's concluded that she has more experience in battle. She's older than him, so the woman couldn't be older than her. There's at least a gap of two or three years between them. And Hidan, no matter what anyone–no matter what Kakuzu–says about him being a disrespectful brat, he's still got some respect for those older and stronger than him.

So the case between the two women might be this, the samurai is older, but the woman is stronger.

He's never seen her do anything to hint at her power, but there's a part of him that's hesitant to find out. Not afraid. Never afraid. His belief in Jashin made sure of that. Jashin himself will make sure of that.

"And this deed needs a body, Shikai." The woman says, "Any body would do."

The samurai has a name now, and maybe that name should be familiar to him. Has he heard it in his time in the Akatsuki, or was she always known by the moniker Mumei?

The samurai looks down. "What good would a body do if it isn't his?"

And he agrees with that thought–one of the very rare times he's agreed with anyone–because it makes sense, so much sense that he can't help but voice it out.

"Yeah."

The single utterance makes the two women snap towards him; the samurai looking like she'd been found out, and the woman–surprisingly, and for the first time–looking like he'd said something he shouldn't have.

"The fuck do you plan to do, anyway?" He mocks, "Any fucking body would do? As if collectors would know the difference, huh? Fucking scum like you are the worst."

At the end of the day, it's obvious that money is the only reason the woman would be willing to go so far as to get him a body. He's never heard of body collectors accepting just the head of a target, doesn't think any collector would anyway. He knows about shinobi whose main task is the disposal of missing-nins or criminals, so what are they trying to do if not sell him to the highest bidder?

The woman blinks and the samurai looks away.

"Outside, Shikai."

The woman mutters the order and exits the room, so the samurai follows her–like an obedient dog–leaving him alone in the hut. And he's never been a master when it comes to dealing with silences like this, the kind of silence that happens when he's being left out on purpose, like there's something he should know, but isn't allowed to. This kind of silence is the one he hates the most, and there's only one thing he does to deal with it.

"God-fucking-damnit!"

He's so angry he actually manages to shake the bowl and rattle the table–just enough. But it's the weight of his head that does it, that makes the bowl tilt and fall on its side, that makes the foul-smelling balm spill all over. He tastes it in his mouth, sharp spearmint and bitter herb, and it makes him want to vomit.

When he coughs, it's herbs and dust and his own saliva. It's a different experience, to feel sick to the stomach, when one doesn't actually have one. Not anymore.

This time it's the momentum that does him in, that makes him roll off the table and fall to the dirt floor.

"Shit–"

He meets the impact with his mouth and teeth, and it hurts. It actually hurts, when the dirt cakes in his teeth and enters his mouth. He's like a real object now, helpless and without any control of his own. He's never felt more humiliated, more furious and frustrated, more bloodthirsty, than he does now.

He spits out the dirt and yells out, "The fuck's taking you two so long?"

And that's the cue, his little cry for help, for them to return. The samurai stands behind the woman, looking defeated.

"Oh." The woman laughs at the sight of him. "Look at the mess you've made, Zanshu."

She picks him up by the hair again, tugging and pulling hard enough to hurt.

"Like a child, isn't he, Shikai?"

The samurai sighs inwardly as a reply, and that solidifies for him the position of the woman above her. Now he knows who's in charge now, and maybe he should have known from the start, ever since he'd been dug up from the earth.

"Oh, if you could see yourself now..."

It's the start of another one of her questions, in the same tone and same expression, but it comes off differently. Like there's more to it, something sinister and vile, something that should make him afraid.

She wipes the dirt and the residue off his face and mouth, gripping his head even tighter that he cannot even move, cannot even bite as a warning, cannot even speak against what she's said. She moves to hold him by the sides of his face now, to cradle his head like something precious.

"Don't you think you're attractive, Zanshu?"

It's a whisper, but at the small distance between his face and hers, it's louder than anything else in the room. And the question itself could fuel his ego, with the way she's looking at him with hooded eyes and a knowing smile–he knows, he knows he is–but he's too angry and too infuriated to even consider the thought.

He doesn't know what he looks like now, if his anger is visible enough to make her realize it. He sees the samurai looking at them from behind, eyes distant and almost pleading. It's one of the looks he's liked seeing before striking the final blow–when his targets are asking him, begging him to spare them. But the look isn't directed at him, it's for him. It's pity, what she's sending to him through her eyes, pity and an apology.

What the fuck is she apologizing about?

The samurai opens her mouth to speak, no sound comes out, but he knows what she's trying to say.

_"Be careful."_

**Author's Note:**

> Oh. Spicy. This was supposed to be a one-shot, but I got carried away and decided to write in segments/scenes/snippets. Warnings are listed above. Feedback, as always, is appreciated. Thanks for reading.


End file.
